How Therapeutic Massage Can Help Your Sciatica

As a technique that involves nearly your whole body, it comes as no surprise that massage carries the power to ease all kinds of physical pains and ailments. For instance, many individuals who suffer from sciatica frequently turn to their massage therapist for healing and pain relief.

What is Sciatica?
Sciatica is the term used to refer to pain emanating from along the sciatic nerve, which extends from your lower back, down your hips and buttocks, and each of your legs, and is the longest nerve in your whole body.

Pain from the sciatic nerve typically affects only one side of your body, and the pain can range from mild to highly severe. Sciatica is often accompanied by other symptoms, such as numbness, tingling, or even weakness in the affected leg and foot.

Sciatica can interfere with your daily life and activities, and make walking, standing, and even sitting difficult. For those would like to try an alternative to traditional prescriptions and painkillers, therapeutic massage may well be able to help and provide some pain relief.

How Can Therapeutic Massage Help with Sciatica?
Massage therapy is an effective way of relieving pain, with 2014 study even finding that deep tissue massage may be just as effective as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for fighting lower back pain, a common symptom of sciatica.

Massage can help with sciatic symptoms in two ways. The main benefit comes from soothing tense muscles. When your muscles are tense, they can place more pressure on your nerves, including your sizeable sciatic nerve. By massaging these tense muscles, it can help to reduce any pressure on your sciatic nerve from surrounding muscles.

Secondly, soft tissue massage can also help to increase your pain threshold by inducing the release of endorphins. Endorphins relieve pain and boost pleasure, causing an increased feeling of general well-being. Endorphins are also released during exercise, sexual activity, and eating.